Thursday, February 26, 2015

It's Been, Well, Quite a Week

The kids finally went back to school on Tuesday, with a 2 hour delay, but let's be clear, I am not complaining! They were there for one and a half whole days before we got another three inches of snow, canceling school again today.

What did I accomplish in that one and a half day period where things were back to normal? Well not a whole hell of a lot, thanks to our friends at US Airways. Tuesday night, I was about to call a potential spring break housesit and thought I'd best look up the times of our flight. Heading over to the US Airways site, my investigation soon turned to panic upon discovering that our out bound flight was completely untenable. There are three legs: Roanoke to Charlotte, Charlotte to Miami, and Miami to Costa Rica. The Charlotte to Miami has us getting in at 6pm, which is unfortunate because the plane to Costa Rice leaves at 11am.

This is a problem.

I called US Airways right away. Sadly for me, storms all over the eastern seaboard have caused all sorts of flight cancellations and the wait time was "longer than normal." What the hell, I have time. Four hours later, never having spoken to an agent, I just went to bed.

The next day, I woke up early, anxiety ridden, at 5:30am and called US Air back immediately. I spent the next eight hours on hold and never spoke with anyone. Seriously. Having unlimited minutes, I just put the phone on speaker and went about my day, yes, making me the jerk in the store with the phone on speaker.

At one point, we went to the airport to try to get some help. The desk agent said she was loathe to change anything and said to check back in a week, feeling it would all work out. Wanting a second opinion, I remained on hold.

We're traveling with two other families, both of whom managed to get through without the extended wait and changed their flights, but to far less desirable options, one arriving at night and the other having an overnight layover in Miami. We were still unsure what was going to happen to us.

I continued my holding game as I went to get my second Hep A/Hep B booster, ouch. Somewhere in the building, I lost signal, 8 hours in.

Since US Air just merged with American, I thought what the hell, I'll call them. After an incredibly brief wait of ten minutes, help was on the line. Sadly, she couldn't really assist as their computer systems were not fully merged BUT she was able to skip the line and get a US Air rep on the phone directly, a trick which would have been helpful before I spent 12 hours on hold but I am not looking a gift horse in the mouth! Long story short, the US Air employee told me a couple of things. She said the 8 hour wait was common this week which is just insane, insane I tell you. She also agreed with the woman from the airport and promised me that if I waited until March 3rd, it would all work out.

None of this is making me feel any better. But with nothing to be done for a week, I am enjoying my snow day, playing with Photoshop. Today I learned to do this: